Switching to Starr/madcow 5X5 (possibly too soon?)
Rip,
I have been doing your original incredibly effective and ingenious SS novice program and I think I'm ready to move on to an Intermediate program. The Starr/madcow 5X5 "linear" program appeals to me, but I have questions...
- Let's say I might be able to milk the Novice program a little longer, and I'm jumping the gun on moving to an intermediate program. What's the downside of moving to Intermediate too soon? Is is just an issue of slower progress (because the Wednesday "recovery" workout is wasted on a novice)? I'm OK with slower progress, but is there any other downside to switching to intermediate program too soon?
- The default program calls for Bench Press Mon & Fri, with Press on Wed. The press gives me more problems progression-wise than the bench, so can you foresee a problem with me switching it so I do Press twice a week (Mon & Fri) and Bench on Wed only?
- One last question. This program calls for 5X5 ramping up to your 5RM on Mon, then a sort of recovery day on Wed. Then on Fri you do the exact same workout/weights as Monday, except you replace the final max set of 5 with a heavy (ie 5RM + 2.5%) triple followed by a drop set of 8 reps.
My question: What is it about Friday's heavy triple followed by the drop set of 8 reps that magically prepares you to increase your 5RM by 2.5% the following Monday? Why not just adding a tiny bit of weight (1.25% maybe?) for a 5th set of 5? I'm not asking in order to criticise (in fact this idea of "bracketing" your 5RM in order to increase it appeals to me conceptually). I'm just curious to know if there's a rationale for this other than "it works".